Saturday, December 04, 2010

Now, there is much for Mick to apologise for. The cover of the Stars album, as a starter, screams the need for the sort of penitence only hitherto exhibited by the medieval saints. But it's not that which has him saying "sorry":

'I regret the philandering," says Mick Hucknall, a man who, by his own estimation, had sex with more than 3,000 women in a three-year stretch in the mid-80s. "In fact, can I issue a public apology through the Guardian? They know who they are and I'm truly sorry."

That's one of those 'sorry's that isn't really. Like "well, I'm sorry if my career earning thousands of pounds and allowing you to keep a roof over your head meant I missed the Christmas play at the school", it's much more about showing off about what you've done, and then trying to make yourself look better by 'regretting' it.

It's actually a shame that Hucknall had to drag up the thousands of presumably still traumatised women he claims to have left in his wake, as the glittering hook it provided the paper to hang the interview on obscured a lot more interesting things going on Rob Fitzpatrick's piece.

Essentially, if Hucknall hadn't made Simply Red records but done the other things he did, he'd probably be regarded warmly as one of the UK's foremost musical enthusiasts, winding a tale from Eric's, through Punk, and releasing and revitalising long-lost reggae tracks on his small label. It's Hucknall's curse that none of that ever really came through in his public face of soupy ballads and fairground lite jazz. It's broadly similar to what happened to Elton John, who still has much of the bloke who used to pop behind the counter in small London record shops to riffle the new releases trapped in the body of the bloke dripping out paeans to dead Princesses.

It's more healthy to reflect on that, than the supposed strike rate of one woman every eight hours.

Rennell's article is effectively a long advert for a book by Phil Strongman that drags up the old "of course, it was the CIA what did it" barroom theory and attempts to construct some sort of proof.

And somewhere along the line his mind was infiltrated. With Chapman, the CIA could have drawn on its long experience of using mind-controlling drugs and techniques such as hypnosis to produce assassins who would eliminate trouble-makers, and ‘patsies’, the fall guys on whom such killings could be blamed.

Strongman claims: ‘Catcher In The Rye was part of Chapman’s hypnotic programming, a trigger that could be “fired” at him by a few simple keywords [via] a
cassette tape message, telex or telegram or even a mere telephone call.

’It’s certainly true that conspiracy theorists have long suspected both the Americans and their communist foes of using such techniques to activate ‘sleeper’ assassins — as fictionalised in the film The Manchurian Candidate.

Well, let's go with this theory for a while. The CIA - and the FBI, too, of course - have gone to all the trouble of turning Mark Chapman into a cross between Cuddles The Monkey and Oddjob.

And they use him to assassinate John Lennon?

Why on earth would the CIA want Lennon dead? Double Fantasy wasn't so bad it called for extrajudicial execution.

Strongman can explain the motive:

He had, it seems, rattled the cages of America’s powerful Right wing, first with his opposition to the Vietnam War and then with his campaign of pacifism.

Even the Mail's Rennell, who is regurgitating the book more-or-less verbatim, is unable to stop himself from squirting milk out his nose at that one:

It is here that those of us who lived through the period must pause for breath. Lennon was a mad and maddening genius, a showman and a show-off. But he was a dreamer, not a doer.

He wrote songs, he played the guitar, he had some funny ideas. He made us laugh. He was irreverent.

But he wasn’t about to bring down capitalism. He was doing much too well out of it himself for that.

Irreverent? By the time the CIA was supposedly having no choice but to have Lennon killed, Lennon was pretty much irrelevant.

You know that last big interview Lennon did with Andy Peebles that gets rolled out every anniversary? It was with Andy Peebles. And if the decision to send the bloke with the all-important Friday evening sports-preview show to interview Lennon isn't enough to remind you that Lennon was gently, but clearly, heading towards silhouetted-appearance-on-Denis-Norden-panel-game oblivion, let's look at this week's Creamguide:

One thing that Lennon page did point out was a moment on Nationwide when Frank Bough looked at a picture of a bearded, bed-in era Lennon and asked his guest Hunter Davies whether he still looked like that in his last days, emphasising that before he died people didn’t really know what Lennon looked like anymore, as he had been very much a recluse, enjoying life as a house husband in New York, and being well out of the public eye, especially on this side at the Atlantic.

Yes, that would have had the CIA worried, wouldn't it? "Imagine if all American men stayed at home and grew beards. It would throw the economy into chaos, and destroy the chances of Project Kiam from being a success."

It's perhaps surprising that - given he's just making stuff up, including the inevitable 'second actual gunman' - Strongman hasn't just decided to construct an equally pointless motive. Hey, how about if Lennon was actually a KGB sleeper? Programmed to go wild and slaughter Walter Cronkite - or the actual true heir to the Romanov throne, of course - at a signal from Olivia Newton John. Hey, the CIA are keeping their Lennon files sealed, so who's to say that just because I've made this up off the top of my head, it isn't in there?

Last week, as we explored the back catalogue of The Senseless Things, Ginsoakedboy put in a plea for Mark Keds' Jolt project.

There's not a great deal from the band online - although it appears Jolt's greatest moment came when Mark Keds snuck a line from the single Kitten into The Libertine's Can't Stand Me Now. So Jolt sort-of had a number two hit. Kind of.

The band also featured Lenie Mets, sometime of Animals That Swim, and Martin Shaw. Shaw drummed and, I suspect, has perfected pretending it's the first time anyone has ever said "Judge John Deed" to him.

In a Q 'Where Are They Now' piece Cass described his former Thingsmate's Jolt as "not working out", which is something of understatement. There were three singles, before evreyone moved on. And not very much has made it to YouTube.

This has, though: second ep Punk Jungle Rules, and the track Love and Romance:

Can't Leave Without It:

Certain Death Estate:

And, erm, that's all I could find. If there's any evidence of the handful of other tracks flitting about online, I'd like to know.

Mind you, Piers Morgan came in at number six, and although the Gazette tries to make sense of this by calling him "CNN chief interviewer", he isn't, yet - that's still Larry King for a few more weeks. And everyone's so horrified at the idea of Morgan taking over even Putin's begging King not to go.

So, given that a couple of weak sessions in the ITV fawnopticon is enough to secure Morgan a place in the top ten, there's a sense that - the public side of the poll at least - is more "can you think of someone who might be a showbiz journalist" rather than "who is the best showbiz journalist". Which means that what the Press Gazette has done is find out who writes the celeb column in the most widely-read newspaper.

It'd be interesting to see the list if they'd not thrown in the public's views. You wonder if Gordon would have been on top then.

But he is. How do you account for your success, Gordon?

[H]e insisted that his brand of showbiz journalism is a lot more sensitive than that of a previous Sun era: "I feel like I’ve become the respectable face of showbiz journalism. That’s something I’m trying to do."

Justin Beiber versus Mumford & Sons versus Florence And The Machine. Let's pretend that the Best New Band category is going to be a fair fight, shall we?

Let's further pretend that these acts will still feel 'new' come the Grammy prizegivings in 2011, and it won't be impossible to tell the category from Lifetime Achievement Awards.

Elsewhere in the Grammy nominations, they pretend that Eminem's latest album doesn't come across like a John Culshaw pastiche of Eminem; they're hoping that Lady GaGa will turn up, and Blur are up for a video prize. No Distance Left To Run, since you're asking. They're going against The Doors. The Doors! In 2011!

The best dance record is quite exciting - La Roux v Robyn v Goldfrapp, although Rihanna and Lady GaGa are also in there offering the academy a more conservative choice.

Perhaps a surprise to see Band Of Horses on the list - they're going to battle Arcade Fire, Black Keys, Broken Bells and Vampire Weekend in the alt.rock category.

Cee Lo Green's Fuck You has picked up quite a few nominations. That's going to make for some awkward moments during the telecast.

If Gordon is really horrified by the prospect of The Bloke From The Go Compare Adverts releasing a Christmas single, why is he encouraging the move by giving it publicity?

(Also, why is Gio Compario doing Santa Claus Is Coming To Town? Shouldn't he be doing his trademark song - sure, you'd have to remove the actual advert, but that shouldn't be beyond the creative reach of the people behind the adverts, surely? Alright, but they could ask someone.)

There is a small donation being made to charity for each sale, which feels less like a generous move and more the sort of thing the Krays would do when they'd send a bunch of flowers to their victim's widows. But this is enough for Gordon to find it in his heart to embrace the effort:

So it is now out of order for adults to dislike the most irritating man in the country after WANGER, as I call him.

Ha ha - do you see what he did there? He swapped two letters in Wagner's name to make it sound like a penis. I've not read much of Gordon's coverage of the X Factor, but I imagine he's been doing this for a while, and is still pushing ahead with it, even though ("as I call him") he's aware it's not even caught on amongst his readers, never mind elsewhere. Still, it's nice that he's still following his dream.